'Soulmates' Episode 4 Review: Are soulmates worth dying over? Charlie Heaton and Malin Ackerman test the test
What would you do if you were to find your soulmate but never got a chance to meet them? If the soulmate were to die, would the torture leave you tormented and pained enough to consider reuniting with them voluntarily in the afterlife? The Charlie Heaton and Malin Akerman combination in Episode 5 of AMC's 'Soulmates' pins the same question at us. Are soulmates worth dying for? Or is it human folly to submit something as intricate as the matters of the heart, into the hands of science?
The episode opens to video clips of a cheerful, attractive, funny girl called Heather, who records almost every waking moment of her life. She is one of those people on social media who never skips a beat when it comes to updating people on what's going on with her — so inevitably, she has to die. Heather is killed in an accident, and although we don't see her family at all, she is surived by at least one person — Heaton's Kurt.
Kurt is a townie simpleton and Heaton manages to mix into the game a Southern drawl so intense and effortless, it's hard to register him as a British actor anymore. The role sees Heaton play an extension of the personality he has been so famous for in the last three years — Jonathan Byers from 'Stranger Things'. Kurt is just as much of a weirdo as Jonathan, just with a thick Southern accent that only goes on to assert Heaton's expertise in the game.
However, the character, penned by Melissa Stephens and Brett Goldstein is quite the painful, albeit delusional one. That both 'Stranger things' and 'Black Mirror' writer William Bridges also contributed to the episode explains a lot, but even with Andrea Harkin's direction that carries an air of foreboding throughout, it's difficult to not have your heartache a little for Kurt.
The simple guy is shoved from one group meeting to another as he spends his day clouded in the what ifs of life with Heather. He is both besotted and upset - replaying Heather's tape that SoulCoonnex had given him over and over again, and the bandages in his wrists testifying for suicidal attempts. He even tries having casual flings and ends up meeting Akerman's Martha, who too is grieving the loss of a soulmate.
The two drink at a bar and sex immediately follows in the back alley, leaving Martha even more shocked that Kurt had been a virgin all along. This causes a disruption in their dynamics and Martha realizes Kurt is too young for her. So a very disappointed and torn Kurt turns to self-help groups when he learns of The Church of Righteous Transition promises to help those whose soul mates have passed on.
There's something extremely Amish about this organisation where meetings are held in a barn and hallucinogenic drinks are offered to its joinees to help them reunite with their soulmate. The clothes people are forced to wear, the therapeutic exercises they engage in, and the tasks — such as dig your own grave, literally — that they have to do daily highlight the cult essence of the organisation. and eventually, things become clearer — demand absolute submission, with fingerprints and more, before the ultimate reunion that happens by dying of course.
The Church of Righteous Transition is all about suicide as a healthy way out of the misery of living life without a soulmate and Kurt almost buys into it, until he sees Martha too in the program. The two resume their undeniable chemistry that once again asks the age old question of the show — just because it's scientifically proven, does it mean no one else can be your soulmate? During group exercises when Kurt pretends to be Martha's dead soulmate and talks to her about all the things she has worth living for, it's a clear foreshadowing of what's about to come.
The two once again have strange outdoor sex, this time waking up in their own graves, but when Kurt proposes they ditch the program, Martha refuses stubbornly. It's almost as if Martha is the deliberating consciousness trying to get used to the idea of the soulmate test not being so accurate after all. And once she's there, its a Bonnie and Clyde-esque chase for the two. Only difference here is, the two are actually victims running from people who were doing several others wrong.
A this point however, they have been halfway through the ritual of reunion by suicide. They have ingested the strange liquid all of them were asked to consume and that leads to profuse vomiting in the two. The church, for all its creepy measures of sending away people who have seen the truth in their false pretence, and asserting the idea of giving it all for love, manages to run away after inducing mass suicide on their grounds.
But Kurt has found a new will to live — something that only came from being this close to death, and being met with the idea of having a soulmate out there. As Kurt carried Martha's body to a nearby vehicle first, and then drives them to the nearest hospital latter, it becomes somewhat ironic that to find his will to live, he must find love first. The two lovebirds test the test, but infusing science into the mix and calling it a forever bond is not the smartest thing indeed.
'Soulmates' airs on Mondays at 10 pm on AMC.
